First “Pirates,” “Baywatch” Tracking Figures In

The first tracking figures for Memorial Day weekend are out with Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” likely to rule the roost with a four-day domestic box office haul of around $90-100 million – roughly on par with the previous film in the franchise.

This fifth and possibly final outing in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced series scored strong notices out of CinemaCon with reaction seemingly dubbing it the best film since the first.

However, the main critics react, ‘Pirates’ should easily beat the Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron-led R-rated comedy “Baywatch” which opens a day earlier and is slated to score a $37 million-$40 million five-day debut.

The summer box office season officially gets under way this weekend with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” tipped to open as high as $150-160 million domestically. Also on the way before Memorial Day are “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” (on track for $23-25 million), “Snatched” (on track for $21 million) and “Alien: Covenant” (on track for $40 million).